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The U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory invites you to attend our Annual Open House on Wednesday, April 2, 2014 from 11:00 am - 3:00 pm. We are located at 2001 S. Rock Road, Fort Pierce, FL. Tours and demonstrations for the general public will begin at 11:00 am and will include an overview of the work carried out at USHRL, demonstrations of research activities, a trolley of the USHRL experiment farm on Picos Road, and a sampling of Florida produce organized by the St. Lucie County Extension Service.

ARS researcher plays key role in efforts to unravel the Nasonia genome

The genome of Nasonia, a parasitoid wasp used for genetic research since the 1950s, has been completed. This is big news in the genetics research community both domestically and around the globe, since the wasp is emerging as a new model system in genetics. A Ft. Pierce, FL entomologist found that a University of Rochester, NY genetics professor had begun Nasonia genomics work. The ARS researcher helped to produce genetic libraries and sequence some 10,000 expressed sequence tags of the genome. This data and that of the Institute for Genomic Research completed the Nasonia genome, which is expected to be released this year (2009). More information on the Nasonia Genome Project and the genome sequencing can be found at www.rochester.edu/College/BIO/labs/WerrenLab/nasonia/genomeprojecttindex.html

The U.S. Horticultural Research Laboratory in Fort Pierce, Florida, has been very successful in reducing the amount of energy consumed by the facility’s heating ventilation and air conditioning system. This savings was accomplished by a series of steps designed to make individual parts of the system more efficient. Some steps, such as the addition of speed controls for the large motors and autoflame controls for the boilers, required substantial monetary investments. Many of the most effective steps in terms of reduction of energy consumption required only careful study of the system and adjustment of the many controls. Natural gas consumption has so far been reduced from a high of 78604 ccf (hundred cubic feet) in 2001 to 38027 ccf in 2008 representing a reduction of 48.4% on a yearly basis.